Separating beauties from beasts

Nail Art Tutorial: Loch Ness Monster Nails

Doing Cookie Monster nail art made me think about what other kind of monsters I liked and that would be easy to translate onto my small nail canvas.

I looked under my bed. (Just the typical monsters there.)

I checked my closet. (Nope, just a bunch of skeletons. They’ll come in handy for Hallowe’en.)

Then I decided to take inspiration from the water, since I love swimming and am also a Pisces. A few cover stories of the National Enquirer that I’ve glanced at while in the checkout aisle may have also influenced me.

Today I bring you Loch Ness Monster Nails! Now you can say that you’ve seen it swimming in the water on a sunny day!

Since I’m a Canadian, taking French class in school is mandatory up until grade 9.

In the 8th grade, I remember loving the class because we got to read all sorts of absurd books. None were serious. Literally every story we read was surrounding Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, or aliens. Yeah! And now imagine reading all those stories in a foreign language. How could it not be fun? Haha!

Once you pick out the colors that you want to use and get all your supplies within arm’s reach, make sure you unscrew the bottles to make it easier for yourself when you start painting.

Now we can begin the fun! 😀

Step 1: Apply a Base Coat

This prevents staining, helps your polish last longer, and sometimes can actually make your polish more vibrant. This time, I opted for a standard base coat, OPI Natural Nail Base Coat. I’ve been testing this out under various polishes, but especially OPI polishes to see if there’s a difference. (I’ll be reporting my experience in a future post.)

Step 2: Paint Your Nails a Light Creme Blue

This will be the sky. I used 2 coats of OPI What’s with the Cattitude? because it’s the perfect light blue and the formula is very easy to work with. Of course, you don’t have to stick to a blue. Try out different background colors if you think it’ll look better.

Wait about 10 minutes for this to dry a little before continuing to the next step.

To see swatches & read my review on this color, click on the above link.

Step 3: Create the Body of the Loch Ness Monster

This is the fun part. You don’t have to be neat. If the body looks a bit lumpy, I actually think it looks more like the monster!

You could use a nail-art brush for accuracy, but, to be honest, I’m not a good artist, so even using a special brush wouldn’t help. Haha! I used the brush straight out of my bottle of Nicole by OPI Daffy Dill, and it seemed to work just fine.

My suggestion is that when you draw it on, try not to apply the polish in strokes. I used little dabs of polish and just dotted it on because I felt like I had more control when I did this. When I sweep on the polish, I tend to cover too large an area. Use the method you’re most comfortable with.

I started by creating a round shape on my index finger to represent the head. Since that finger has a bigger canvas than my pinkie, I thought it was better to have the monster facing this way. (On my other hand, I did the mirror image so that the monster’s head was always on the index finger.)

Once you finish creating the head, draw a neck. I like painting it on an angle.

For your middle and ring fingers, paint upside-down “U”s.

To create the tail, draw a short line on a 45-degree angle.

Step 4: Add the Shimmering Water

While you’re waiting for the Loch Ness Monster’s body to dry a tad, you may as well paint the water. I chose to use China Glaze Blue Island Iced Tea because it’s shimmery/glittery, which reminded me of the water.

Plus it was at this point that I decided that Nessie (My friend, Matty, came up with this nickname…haha!) would want to be swimming on a sunny day. The blue polish looks like there’s sun reflecting off the water and making it sparkle.

Apply the blue polish straight across the tips of your nails.

Step 5: Highlight Nessie’s Body

I thought it was too plain leaving the body one color, so I highlighted just the top (where the sun would hit) with Sally Hansen Ivy League, a shimmery green. I think it adds some dimension.

Add a few drops of the shimmery green polish onto your piece of foil. Then use your nail-art brush to paint it on.

In this case, I opted to use a nail-art brush instead of the brush directly from the bottle because I needed a thin line and didn’t want to cover up most of the creme green.

Step 6: Give Nessie Sight!

Add a drop of white creme polish (I used OPI Alpine Snow) onto your piece of foil. Then use your dotting tool or the handle of a brush to create a small circle on Nessie’s head.

Step 7: Continue to Give Nessie Sight!

Add a drop of black creme polish (I used China Glaze Liquid Leather) onto your piece of foil. Use your dotting tool to place a small pupil inside the white circle you just created.

Step 8: Wait 10-15 Minutes & Then Apply a Top Coat

This is important to seal in all your hard work. Plus I find that using a top coat ‘smooths’ out all the colors and makes them look better.

Step 9: Befriend Monsters…Especially the Ones Under Your Bed!

Monsters need love, too! And it’s always a plus to have one on your side, right? 😉

After creating Loch Ness Monster nail art, I realized that with the same steps, you could easily turn it into snake nail art. All you’d have to do is add a forked tongue with a nail striper, perhaps draw on a funky snakeskin pattern on the body, and replace the shimmery-blue polish with green polish (for the grass).

I had fun doing this, and it makes me laugh knowing that wherever I go, I’m bringing along 2 Loch Ness Monsters. 😛 Hope you enjoyed this. I’ll continue to try out new goofy nail art. Thanks for all of your support! It motivates me to try new things!

Hmm…you may have noticed some black near the tail on my nails. Originally I was planning to outline the monster with a black nail striper, but it didn’t look good, so I had to ‘fix’ it. Hope you still like it even if it looks like it’s mildly…umm…relieving itself. 😛

One more thing before I end this post. You may be wondering why I didn’t show photos of my thumb nails. That’s because I left them plain with just 2 coats of the light blue. If you wanted to add nail art to your thumbs, maybe you could paint on binoculars? I think that’d be funny. I wanted to keep this manicure simple, though.

Do you believe that the Loch Ness Monster really exists? What’s your favorite monster? Do snakes make you squeamish?

I couldn’t view that clip because I’m in Canada and it has a geographic-viewing restriction…but I looked at a YouTube clip of it. My Loch Ness Monster didn’t ask for $3.50. When it comes to the Nail Polish Monster, though, it often just asks for my entire wallet! 😛

What a creative idea! I especially like how you used the glittery blue and green polishes to add dimension. I also love how Nessie’s going across 4 fingers–that definitely adds that “oh COOL!” factor. Such a cute manicure 🙂

Yes, I had an amazing French teacher – learned a lot because of her. Not only was she really smart and friendly, but she had a wardrobe to die for! Honestly, she was so classy and wore lots of high-end designer outfits and accessories. But she would never brag about it, which made her look even better in my eyes.

Hehe, and I think the ridiculous story topics motivated me to learn French more, too! 😛

Mostly le petit nicolas stories and other random ones. They were amusing but I felt like Nicolas was a crybaby. However, in the USA (at least at my school) we don’t start language classes until seventh grade. We got to watch some good french films though.Katie recently posted: Yankees Baseball Nail Art

You are brilliant. What an original idea! You are so lucky to have two lochness monsters as bodyguards 😉 huge fan of your nailart AND writing style! Those elementary school reading times are evidently showing their great influence on your writing 🙂 (French or not).Marta recently posted: I’m Pinking French Tips

Yes, nothing beats having 2 Loch Ness Monsters as bodyguards. (Although I should probably rename ‘Nessie’ to Boris or Bruno…or just something that sounds stronger…hehe) Not that I actually need bodyguards… 😛

I appreciate your comment about my writing. I may reallllllly love nail polish and nail art, but I am even more passionate about writing. So I took that as the highest compliment!

And you’re totally right about reading influencing my writing. Back in elementary school, I was a real bookworm (hey – maybe I just thought up another nail-art design thanks to you…hehe!).

Once I learned how to read, I seriously read everything – tons of books, of course, but also cereal boxes, gum packages, soap boxes, just everything! Plus I am grateful because even though my parents’ financial state was very tight when I was growing up, the one thing that my dad always let me buy were books because he said it was a small investment in a kid’s future.